Even though there are a few imposters out there, The Conversation Prism is still the original and IMHO the most thoughtful visualization of the social media landscape. JESS3 and I introduced The Conversation Prism at SXSW in 2008. Since then, it has undergone three iterations with the last being v3.0.

I’ve good news to share. We’re working on v4.0, but we need your help to finish it. We’ve removed and added some categories as well as introduced and deleted many social networks and tools. This is where you come in. Please tell us what we’re missing, what branches we should consider, or what we should remove altogether in the comments below. You can see a detailed view here.

The Story of The Conversation Prism 1.0

In the original post introducing Version 3.0 of the Conversation Prism someone had asked, “Why is it called the Conversation Prism when it looks like a color wheel? If it has nothing to do with a prism, why is it called that?”

Believe it or not, that’s the first time I had been asked this question. So, I decided to address it because there actually is a reason. It was originally a prism because of the way a prism works—it is a refraction of light. The Conversation Prism was a play on “light” and “enlightenment”. Instead of taking the conversations that are happening on the social web and looking at them as one stream from an audience, run it through a prism; it bends the light so that you can see the light refract, and therefore see all of its separate conversations taking place. That was the premise of the Conversation Prism. We eventually had to put it into a circular format because after the first round of research, there were too many players to fit in the design of the original prism. If you can envision what Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album looks like, which was basically a prism, that was the original concept for how the original Conversation Prism would look and work: one light bending into the prism that was tiered from top to bottom. There are just too many solutions out there, so it had to become circular in order for it to make sense.

The Inspiration for The Conversation Prism

The Conversation Prism attempted to succinctly visualize the social media universe. In 2007 and 2008, attempts at presenting the sheer size of rapidly expanding social media landscape were beginning to take shape. Often, they would begin as a PowerPoint slide intended to demonstrate the opportunities and challenges facing today’s businesses. This might seem counter intuitive or even absurd now, but back then, experts called for companies to maintain a presence in every network.

Then and now, I still believe that the landscape of social media is unique to your business. With the Conversation Prism 1.0, I attempted to bring a bit more structure to the understanding of the social web. The idea was to organize the most prominent networks of the time by how people used them not necessarily how they were designed or marketed.

What very few people know is that the original Prism predated many of the listening tools that we now have today. It was designed with both form and function, intended to not only visualize the social media sphere, but also offer a click path to the search boxes of each network. This went directly against against those who said you needed a presence in every network. Basic now, but at the time, it encouraged strategists to use the search box in each network to figure out whether or not that community was active for you and your market.

The Conversation Prism was and is a template for developing a social media strategy. Of course its design and purpose evolved over the years. But what continues today is that it is a social map where you plot your course to engage customers and influencers in the networks of relevance. It also serves as a reminder that businesses must continually listen to conversations and put a structure around it to stay relevant now and over time. Many listening vendors today will tell you that they used the original Conversation Prism as their framework for developing their platforms.

While serving as an excellent checklist, I’m guessing that the conversation prism will get progressively harder to slice and dice as companies expand their engagement competencies and popular culture postures over time. As often said, we are now “at the end of the beginning of the digital revolution”.

It would be intereresting to see how the conversation prism will look (from a company-centric perspective) if it were segmented in just 5 cuts;
1. Social sharing platforms
2. Aggregator platforms
3. Utility plaforms
4. Networking platforms
5. Self-expression platforms

or 4 cuts from the lenses of the consumer/customer;
1. The need to belong
2. The need to discover and explore
3. The need to achieve
4. The need for fun and enjoyment

As marketers migrate towards the customer experience holy grail, I’m wondering Brian, how this prism will look from those lenses.

Virtual Worlds – Webkinz World although it is no longer number one in the children’s world it was much larger than Club Penguin which you do have. Ganz has also just released in Beta a new world called Amazing World which you may want to include.

Search is missing as a category, Dropbox is missing from collaboration and Google Docs is named Google Drive nowadays. Google Hangout should be in Livecasting, I think? How about WeTransfer & SlideRocket for Documents/Content?

Kickstarter feels like co-creation or wisdom of crowd even though the conversation takes place through funding, not commenting. Sorry, I just saw you added this, but I’ll keep it in as a vote.

Wikipedia is a dialog—though not completely open.Also I notice that regular shopping sites, notably Amazon, are bothering a lot less about product descriptions and leaving it all to customer comments. Actually very frustrating if you want plain vanilla list of product details—I find myself having to seek out manufacturers’ sites to get them. Don’t know where/how this belongs on prism.